Praying for Maine
Praying for Maine
Pastor Garrett Soucy, Christ the King Church, Belfast, Maine
D. Martyn Lloyg-Jones is attributed with having said that England was a country that had been inoculated with a mild form of Christianity, potent enough to protect the citizens from ever getting the real thing. It seems as though every place that has ever experienced a powerful reception of the Gospel has also experienced a kind of subsequent herd immunity. We know this happened throughout the history of Israel of Old.
And Joshua said unto them, Pass over before the ark of the LORD your God into the midst of Jordan, and take you up every man of you a stone upon his shoulder, according unto the number of the tribes of the children of Israel: That this may be a sign among you, that when your children ask their fathers in time to come, saying, What mean ye by these stones? Then ye shall answer them, That the waters of Jordan were cut off before the ark of the covenant of the LORD; when it passed over Jordan, the waters of Jordan were cut off: and these stones shall be for a memorial unto the children of Israel for ever. - Joshua 4:5-7
In these verses, it is as though Joshua expects the covenant people of God to forget that God had moved in power in this great and mighty way. Despite the awe that was produced in the moment, the covenant people of God experience a kind of forgetting — what James describes as a kind of Gospel amnesia. The truth that Israel’s children would someday ask, “Why are these stones stacked like this?” is a condemnation against them that they did not memorialize the great works of God in history, at least not sufficiently. They are asking because their parents no longer talked about it. They forgot what God had powerfully once done in their midst.
Even though half of the state of Maine claims to be Christian, according to Pew Research, less than half of that number attends church on a regular basis. That has not always been the case. We New Englanders are reminded of its robust Christian heritage on a regular basis, by both critics and fans alike. But there is a danger as well that pertains to the wrong kind of memorializing. We mustn’t allow ourselves to be a people who are nostalgic for a Christian past. That was not the point of the memorials in Scripture. A right remembering of the past should lead to a proper functioning in the present.
Say not thou, What is the cause that the former days were better than these? for thou dost not enquire wisely concerning this. - Ecclesiastes 7:10
Some folks pray for New England to experience revival in order that we might simply conform to better days than these, days that were, in the mind of the rememberer, simpler. But this can be a conservative desire without necessarily being a Christian one. We should not want either revival or reformation in order to correspond to a nostalgic moment in our history; rather, we should desire revival and reformation in order to experience the power of the Redeemer God glorifying Himself by saving our neighbors and enemies. There is always the temptation that the church might settle for civility if they can’t arrive at holiness. Both are gifts, but the flesh is capable of producing a kind of civility. When we pray for reformation and revival, we must not be content with a close runner up. Pray that Maine would not be inoculated to Christianity by a revival of conservatism. In the Name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, amen.
Prayer Requests:
• Pray that the churches of Maine would not see each other as competition but as co-laborers.
• Pray that God would continue to raise up Christ-like leadership for the many congregations throughout the state that are in need of pastors and elders.
• Pray that Christians throughout the state would do good work in bringing glory to God by our manner of life and that the fruit of righteousness would be attractive to those whom the Lord is calling to Himself.
• Pray that those in government would fear the Lord and practice righteousness. When the righteous are in authority, the people rejoice: but when the wicked beareth rule, the people mourn. - Proverbs 29:2
• Pray that the joy of the Lord would be the strength of His people in Maine and that we would not forget the Gospel.
• Pray that legalism and shallow religious virtue signaling would both be rejected as false placeholders for the true Gospel. Pray that those who have been lukewarm in their faith would experience the Spirit of God working light and heat in them.